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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26410924">inertia</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeperoth/pseuds/zeperoth'>zeperoth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Death Note (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Compliant, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, M/M, POV Yagami Light, Yotsuba Arc (Death Note)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:15:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,446</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26410924</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeperoth/pseuds/zeperoth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing moments from the Yotsuba arc, and everything that follows.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>L/Yagami Light</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>115</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>inertia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><i>Every morning the maple leaves.<br/>
Every morning another chapter where the hero shifts<br/>
from one foot to the other. Every morning the same big<br/>
and little words all spelling out desire, all spelling out</i><br/>
You will be alone always and then you will die.</p><p>— Richard Siken, <i>Crush</i></p><p>1.</p><p>Light forgets.</p><p>A black notebook falling from the sky, its pages fluttering in the wind; sleepless nights; subterfuge; addiction; sweat-drenched fantasies of a perfect world; his name on Raye Penber’s lips—all of it slips away, like a dream upon waking, like something that was never even there in the first place, and he realizes that he has made a terrible mistake.</p><p>He’s not Kira. He never was. He’s innocent, and while he sits here in prison the real Kira is out there somewhere, completely free of suspicion, wreaking havoc on the world in the name of justice.</p><p>He has to get out of here. He has to make L understand.</p><p>L’s voice is as low and implacable as ever as he reminds Light that he was the one who made L promise not to release him until his innocence was proven, and all the evidence currently points to the conclusion that he is, in fact, guilty.</p><p>Light pleads with him. He’s aware of how desperate, how irrational he must sound, but he <i>knows</i> he’s innocent, even if he can’t prove it. He doesn’t belong here. They’re wasting time. L is a genius—why can’t he see that?</p><p>He struggles against the cuffs encircling his wrists. The metal gouges into his skin, but the pain is an afterthought in comparison to the panic attack he is having. L’s voice comes over the intercom, telling him to calm down, to just breathe, but he can’t. He has never felt so out of control in his life—so trapped, and by his own <i>idiocy</i> nonetheless. What the hell had he been thinking, asking L to imprison him? How could he have ever believed that he might be Kira?</p><p>By the time he finally gets himself under control, there is blood dripping from his wrists onto the floor.</p><p>Not long after two guards wearing motorcycle helmets appear. One stands stiffly outside the cell, his hand hovering by his belt, while the other dabs Light’s wrists with antiseptic, bandages them, and wipes the blood from the floor.</p><p>“Thank you,” Light says. He tries for a smile.</p><p>The mirrored helmet does not smile back.</p><p> </p><p>Every day in solitary confinement is the same: two bland meals delivered by guards with their faces covered, two bottles of water, and L’s voice over the intercom, preaching some statistic or another at him, trying to talk him into confessing to a crime he’s innocent of. It all grows tiresome very quickly.</p><p>He supposes that’s the point.</p><p>“I’m not Kira,” he says, over and over and over, but L refuses to believe him.</p><p> </p><p>Then: screeching tires; the cold barrel of a gun between his eyes; a deafening report.</p><p>“I have to give it to you, Ryuzaki,” he says that night. The chain clangs noisily between them as they brush their teeth. “You have quite the imagination.”</p><p>L hunches over the sink and spits. His eyes meet Light’s in the mirror.</p><p>“Not really,” he says.</p><p>Light sighs and goes back to brushing his teeth.</p><p> </p><p>They sleep in the same bed, because there is no way around it—that is, Light sleeps and L perches like some strange origami creature at the foot of the bed, typing away at his laptop into the late hours of the night. There are crumbs between the sheets and the whir of L’s laptop fan is a little too loud to be considered ambient noise, but Light is too tired to care, and in any case it is better than the thin, scratchy mattress he had in prison. He falls asleep quickly.</p><p>When he wakes, L is still typing at the foot of the bed.</p><p>“Sleep well, Light-kun?” he inquires, without looking away from his screen.</p><p>“Yeah,” Light says. He rubs a hand across his eyes and squints through the pre-dawn darkness at L. The blue light of the laptop casts L’s face into planes of shadow, making the circles under his eyes look like bruises. “Did you…sleep at all?”</p><p>L’s thumb tugs at his lower lip. “I have insomnia,” he mutters at his laptop screen. “I find it difficult, if not impossible, to sleep. Light-kun doesn’t need to worry himself—it has nothing to do with him.”</p><p>“Don’t they make pills for that?” Light asks.</p><p>“Yes,” L says. “I suppose they do.” His eyebrows draw together as he stares at his screen. After a moment, he begins typing again.</p><p>Light sits up and stretches, grimacing at the crumbs that seem to be embedded in his skin. He hates not being clean. “Hey, Ryuzaki, do you mind bringing your laptop into the bathroom? I’d like to take a shower.”</p><p>“Whatever Light-kun wants.”</p><p>They head to the bathroom together, the chain jangling between them.</p><p> </p><p>It is strange, at first, being handcuffed to another person 24/7, but eventually he gets used to it, gets used to staying within the radius of the chain and moving in a way that minimizes the tug of the metal around his wrist. Getting used to being around L every hour of the day is another story altogether.</p><p>For one thing, it’s clear that L still suspects him of being Kira. When the members of the task force ask, L tells them that there’s a 2.1% chance that Light is Kira. When Light asks, he says 14%. </p><p>Light thinks the actual percentage must be much higher.</p><p>It doesn’t matter, he supposes. He knows he’s innocent, even if L doesn’t. Still, it’s disconcerting  to spend every moment of his life with someone who thinks he’s a serial killer, who is most likely scrutinizing his every move for proof of his guilt.</p><p>Furthermore, L is just…strange. He never seems to sleep. He eats copious amounts of sweets but remains unnaturally thin. His shampoo is strawberry-scented, but he smells of cold sweat and raspberries. His eyes, when he looks at Light, are like black holes.</p><p>Also, at least half of the things he says make no sense whatsoever.</p><p>He is, by far, the most perplexing person Light has ever met.</p><p>Slowly, however, even this begins to change. He thinks he begins to understand L, begins to understand the circuitous workings of his mind, his unpredictable, violent mood swings, his impish and slightly crooked sense of humor. He begins to see that sometimes L is deliberately insensitive, and that other times he is simply too lost in the labyrinth of his own genius to recall that other people exist too.</p><p>Light says as much to him one day when L is being particularly irksome. “You know, Ryuzaki, just because you’re the world’s best detective and you have a genius-level intellect doesn’t mean that other people don’t have thoughts and emotions too. You should take that into consideration sometimes.”</p><p>L looks up at him with a custard puff dangling from the long fingers of one hand and a black pawn from the fingers of the other. “I do take it into consideration,” he says, his face dead serious. “Sometimes.” He places the pawn on the chess board, bites into the pastry, and uses his thumb to wipe custard from the corner of his mouth. Then he licks his thumb.</p><p>“Can you not?” Light says, annoyed. He moves his bishop. “Checkmate in three. You might as well resign.”</p><p>L tips his king over gracefully. “Would Light-kun care to play again?”</p><p>“You just hate to lose,” Light says, rolling his eyes, but he sets the pieces back up and they play again. L wins this time. He deliberately wets his fingers with the pink tip of his tongue before reaching across the board and tipping Light’s king over.</p><p>“You’re insufferable,” Light says, and the corner of L’s mouth hitches up.</p><p> </p><p>The strangest thing, Light thinks, is that the more facets of L’s personality he unearths, the more he feels that he is really unearthing himself—his own arrogance, his own loneliness, his own secret desire for something beyond the mundane.</p><p>It is almost frightening how alike they are, considering they are not alike at all.</p><p> </p><p>They get used to seeing each other naked, because there is no way around that either. At first Light finds this embarrassing, but L is utterly without shame, and maybe it rubs off on him a little because after the awkwardness of the first few times, he stops thinking that it is awkward at all.</p><p>Sometimes, for the sake of expediency, they shower together, passing a bar of soap back and forth with slick fingers, the chain clanging noisily between them. L never uses conditioner. One time Light passes him the bottle, just to see what he will do; L squirts a gum-ball-sized amount into the palm of his hand, sniffs it curiously, and then begins to work it into Light’s hair instead of his own.</p><p>Light keeps the conditioner to himself after that.</p><p>He does not ask L about the long, curved scar across his ribs, or the track marks on his arm, or the cigarette burns on the inside of his thigh, and L’s gaze does not linger on the bracelets of newly-formed scar tissue that mar Light’s otherwise perfect skin.</p><p>Light brushes his hair after showers. L does not. Of all the things about L that set his teeth on edge—his perpetually sticky fingers, the countless cookies he eats on the bed with no regard for the crumbs that fall onto the duvet, and the honorific he insists on tacking onto Light’s name, to name a few—Light thinks the fact that he refuses to brush his hair might be the top one. For some reason he can’t quite explain, he finds the thorny, untamed tangle of L’s hair utterly infuriating.</p><p>In another life, he thinks, L would believe him when he says he’s not a serial killer, and Light would make him brush his hair.</p><p>It’s a stupid fantasy. He knows that.</p><p>In another life, L would not notice him at all.</p><p> </p><p>The Kira investigation crawls along. In the end, it’s Light who makes the breakthrough, who notices that, over the course of the past few months, the deaths of prominent Japanese businessmen have been benefiting a company called Yotsuba.</p><p>“Excellent work, Light-kun,” L tells him. It’s a compliment, but it doesn’t sound like one.</p><p>“I want to catch Kira as much as you do,” Light feels compelled to remind him. “It’s not that I don’t, ah, enjoy this arrangement we have”—he raises his wrist and jangles the chain—“but it would definitely be a relief to be cleared of suspicion once and for all.”</p><p>“Hm,” is all L says. He pops a candied strawberry into his mouth and turns back toward the monitors.</p><p> </p><p>They begin staying up late at night in the control room after the rest of the task force has gone home. Watari brings them yellow cake with buttercream frosting and coffee and bowls and bowls of sugar cubes. The two of them work independently for the most part, consulting one another from time to time.</p><p>They are closer than ever to catching Kira, and Light knows he should be thinking about what he’s going to do after this bizarre period of his life is over, after Kira’s been caught and he’s free to go back to life as he knows it, but for some reason he just can’t imagine it. He can’t imagine going back to college and dating pretty girls who mean nothing to him and sleeping in a bed without crumbs in it.</p><p>L lifts a forkful of cake into his mouth, his attention absorbed by the monitor in front of him. Light watches him surreptitiously. </p><p>All things considered, L is quite unattractive. His skin is sickly pale. He is too thin and his posture is terrible. He doesn’t brush his hair.</p><p>And yet, Light thinks.</p><p>And yet.</p><p> </p><p>The proverbial pot boils over.</p><p>Afterwards, he won’t be able to remember exactly how it starts—only that they are both tired and on edge, and L is in one of his moods, and he says something glib and shockingly cruel, even for him, about Light being Kira—and something inside of Light just <i>snaps</i>.</p><p>“What did you say, Ryuzaki?”</p><p>They are in their bedroom. The digital clock on the nightstand reads 3:58 am. L puts down his half-eaten plate of cake and looks at him with something dangerous in his eyes.</p><p>“I said—”</p><p>Light can see it all happening before it actually does.</p><p>L will finish his sentence. Light will punch him in the mouth, and L will punch him back, and he’ll slam L against the wall, and L will heel-kick him into the opposite wall, and somehow they’ll end up wrestling on the floor, trying to strangle each other with the chain binding them together, and L will pin him down, and, because he has never known how to admit defeat, Light will kiss him, and L will kiss him back. Their teeth will clash together, their tongues asphyxiating each other, and it will be like nothing either of them has ever known. And then they will fuck on the hardwood floor, clumsy and desperate and violent, with the taste of each other’s blood and the tooth-aching sweetness of buttercream in their mouths, and when L comes inside of him he will fist his hands in L’s hair and lose control too—and afterwards as they lie on the floor with their limbs tangled together L will say, <i>there is a 78% chance that you’re Kira</i>, and Light will say, <i>I think I’m a little bit in love with you</i>.</p><p>The space between them is a line of dominoes and L’s finger is on the first one.</p><p>Light feels as if he can hardly breathe.</p><p>“Don’t,” he says. The word escapes as a whisper, a small hiss of air.</p><p>L’s eyes, when they look at him, are like black holes. Something shudders in their depths, then goes perfectly still.</p><p>He says, “I understand.”</p><p>He turns away.</p><p>He does not finish his sentence.</p><p> </p><p>2.</p><p>Forgetting, it turns out, was the easy part. Remembering is much harder.</p><p>He screams at the onslaught of memories. It <i>hurts</i>. Every name eviscerates him and writes itself on the inside of his skin. Every scruple and scrap of morality in him dies an agonizing death. Still, when it is over, he is himself again, and he knows with sublime, indelible certainty that he has won.</p><p>The ringing in his ears gradually fades and he becomes aware that L is speaking to him in a tone of concern. Light turns and gives him a small, shaky smile.</p><p>“Yes, Ryuzaki. I’m fine.”</p><p>He doesn’t bother to be too convincing. It no longer matters if L knows that he’s Kira. He has no proof, after all, and he’ll be dead soon enough.</p><p>Higuchi’s screams are music to his ears.</p><p> </p><p>He lies in bed that night and reflects on the events that transpired in his absence with great amusement. Of course he fell in love with L. Of course. He buries his face in his pillow and laughs about it for a solid five minutes.</p><p>It’s a pity, really, that L never finished that sentence. He doubts L will sleep with him now that they both know he’s Kira.</p><p>Oh, well. You win some, you lose some.</p><p>His wrist feels oddly bare without the cuff, and he can’t fall asleep without the whir of L’s laptop fan and the weight of his insomnia at the foot of the bed. He considers going down the hall and knocking on L’s door, but ultimately decides against it. What would be the point? </p><p>L will be dead soon. It’s better for him to get used to sleeping on his own.</p><p> </p><p>A few days later he finds L standing on the roof in the pouring rain, talking like a man who knows he’s going to die soon. Light feels deeply sorry for him, although he knows he shouldn’t. If L had it his way Light would be strapped down in a prison cell somewhere, a cocktail of lethal drugs forced into his veins, his name printed in the newspapers under the headline, SERIAL KILLER FINALLY BROUGHT TO JUSTICE. He, at least, will give L the dignity of a quiet death and the satisfaction of knowing he was right about Light all along.</p><p>“Tell me, Light,” L asks him, “from the moment you were born, has there ever been a point when you’ve actually told the truth?”</p><p>Light wonders what would happen if he kissed him. He wonders if L would taste like rainwater or raspberries, like cake frosting or bitter poison.</p><p>Instead, he deflects the question. They go back inside.</p><p>When L crouches on the steps below him and takes the sole of his foot into his hand, Light lets him. The feeling of L’s skin quiets the thrum of panic in his mind. He has never been so pathetically grateful for something in his life.</p><p>L’s long fingers skillfully massage every sensitive spot on his foot. When his thumb brushes Light’s achilles tendon, Light, overcome by an inordinate urge to touch this strange creature who he loves just one more time, reaches out and gently mops L’s dripping wet hair with his towel.</p><p>L looks up at him. Their eyes meet.</p><p>“It’ll be lonely, won’t it?” he says. His eyes are as fathomless as ever and Light thinks an entire world could be swallowed up in them, if only L would kiss him.</p><p>Then L’s phone rings, and he is reminded of the way their story was always meant to end.</p><p> </p><p>He gives a eulogy at the funeral. It is a quiet affair, attended only by the members of the task force. They lap up every empty word he says and nod fervently in agreement when he vows to bring Kira to justice. <i>For L</i>. The entire thing feels vaguely wrong, like he is somehow dishonoring L’s memory, but of course that’s ridiculous. L is gone and in the world he has left behind, nothing is right or wrong unless Light deems it so himself.</p><p>That night he finds L’s name in the Death Note. He traces his fingers across the letters and thinks blissfully of the perfect world he will build, now that the only person who could have stood in his way is gone.</p><p>He tears the page with L’s name written on it out of the Death Note, douses it in gasoline, and watches it burn.</p><p>Then he gets to work.</p><p> </p><p>He pretends to grieve for a few weeks. Then he goes back to college. He dates pretty girls who mean nothing to him. He sleeps in a bed without crumbs in it.</p><p>It’s not half bad.</p><p>Actually, scratch that—it’s <i>great</i>.</p><p>Crime rates go down. His kill count goes up. He is Michelangelo, and the world is his David. With every stroke of his pen, with every judgement he pronounces on the wicked, he chisels it into something closer to perfection.</p><p> </p><p>Everything is as it ought to be.</p><p> </p><p>He misses L sometimes, but not very much.</p><p> </p><p>3.</p><p>At twenty-four he stumbles into an abandoned warehouse with five gunshot wounds and dies there of a heart attack. That’s the gist of it, at least.</p><p>The reality is much uglier.</p><p>At twenty-four he stumbles into an abandoned warehouse after being defeated and thoroughly humiliated by a <i>child</i> and his hands are covered in his own blood and he is having a full-blown panic attack for the first time in years. There are holes in his body where the bullets have gone through him and everything hurts so bad and he can’t breathe and everyone has abandoned him and he doesn’t want to die like this.</p><p>There are no bells for him—only the harsh, labored sound of his own breathing and a terrible, echoing silence. He can’t die like this, not after everything he’s done. He doesn’t want to die like this.</p><p>At some point Ryuk must write his name in the Death Note because then there is even more pain than before. His heart stutters and then stops.</p><p>For a moment, he thinks he sees the phantom of the only person he ever loved. Then L, too, leaves him.</p><p>He dies alone.</p><p>Some stories, he thinks with despair verging on hysteria as consciousness slips away from him, were just never meant to have happy endings.</p>
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